State House Olympic Committee: We want Romney’s advice

Matt StoutThursday, November 14, 2013

Credit: AP

Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney, keep your phone handy.

The as-yet incomplete committee tasked with determining whether Boston and the state should tackle the 2024 Olympics is expected to ask the former Bay State governor — and 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games savior — to address them at some point before March, when they’re slated to turn in a feasibility report.

“He not only has a great deal of knowledge about the Commonwealth, but about how to bring the Olympics to a city, as he did in Salt Lake,” said state Sen. Eileen Donoghue, a Lowell Democrat who has spearheaded the formation of the Olympic task force. “Those are experiences that are really without any exception something we need to hear about .... I expect that you’ll see on the agendas in the future an invitation to the governor, depending on his schedule.”

Romney has told the Herald he’d be open to talking with officials organizing the effort, though he said last month, “I have to be asked.”

The committee met for the first time today, still short three of its planned 11 members two weeks after passage of the law’ that created.

It’s awaiting two names from Gov. Deval Patrick, who has already named Suffolk County Sheriff Steven Tompkins to serve as a public safety appointee, and one from House Minority Leader Brad Jones. The law calls on Patrick to pick one representative from the separate, private Boston 2024 Organizing Committee and another of his own choosing.

Tompkins said he had only received word from Patrick’s office at 6 p.m., yesterday that he was on the committee.

Donoghue said afterward that the committee, which can take in private donations, does not have a target figure for how much it will raise, but she noted officials who studied bringing the Olympics to Boston in the early 1990s had raised roughly $5 million to conduct a feasibility study.

The Boston 2024 Organizing Committee was established recentlty by private citizens who are interested in bringing theOlympics here. There is a separate private group of business leaders, including Suffolk Construction CEO John Fish and Romney, also trying to build support for a possible bid.

“We’re pretty confident that the initial level of interest from business is certainly there, and they’re certainly supportive of this exploration. I think everybody realizes that we need to look before we leap,” Donoghue said. “We’ll approach it aggressively.”